- [Melody] Coming up on "State Lines", [intense upbeat music] we'll spend time with investigators from the infamous Watergate case.

Find out how four men with North Carolina roots played key roles in an investigation that changed American history.

This is "State Lines".

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Hello, I'm Melody Hunter-Pillion, excited to be here to talk with our guests about a scandal and investigation that has not lost its pull on our imaginations or its relevance to the relationship between power and democracy, Watergate.

In politics and popular culture, the word has become synonymous with scandal, intrigue, and, of course, downfall.

An estimated 80 to 85% of American households watched televised coverage of the Watergate Congressional investigation, yet few people are aware that at the time of the Watergate case, a handful of North Carolina up and coming attorneys became directly involved in that investigation, examining President Richard Nixon's participation in the June 1972 Watergate Building break-in and its cover-up.

So, gentlemen, this was the first Congressional investigation against a sitting president and the four of you really then became a part of this significant moment in history.

We're gonna talk about that, and, as a matter of fact, our audience should know that one of you actually served the subpoena on the Nixon White House for the Watergate tapes, and so let's introduce our guests, and that person that we're talking about, Rufus Edmisten, is gonna tell us about that history making moment of serving that subpoena.

He is the former North Carolina Secretary of State and Attorney General, he also served as Deputy Chief Counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee under its committee chair, US Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina.

Mike Carpenter was an investigator for the Senate Watergate Committee before law school and attorney Lacy Presnell worked with Senator Ervin as an assistant investigator for the US Senate Select Committee on presidential campaign activities, and we cannot forget Gene Boyce, he served as Assistant Chief Counsel to the Bipartisan Watergate Senate Committee.

He was the lead investigator in the discovery of the Nixon White House taping system and those infamous Nixon tapes.

So gentlemen, we're gonna start with this, I really want each of you, in whatever order you prefer, to talk about when you first heard about the break-in, the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate building and hotel, and in "The Washington Post", you know, there are a few little lines, it's not even top of fold, certainly not a headline, when did you first find out about this and did you have any inkling that it would escalate into something so large?

- Well, Melody, since I was the other one there at the time, working for Senator Ervin beginning in 1963, it was an afterthought.

There was this little tiny article in "The Washington Post" that said there was a break-in at the Watergate, and it was characterized as a second class burglary, and I do remember though that I thought, "What kind of a burglary is this where those leaving the Watergate are dressed in suits and ties?

", but that's how I heard about it by reading about it in "The Washington Post", which I read every day.

- You gentlemen though, had have been reading, even if you weren't there at the time, involved in this thing yet, had you read about it, heard about it in the news, how did you become familiar with this at all?

- Well, I heard about it, I read about it in "The Post" as Rufus did.

I was working for Senator B. Everett Jordan from North Carolina in June of 1972 before I went to work for Senator Ervin and Rufus in September, and I had the same reaction that Rufus did, that five burglars caught in the Watergate in the Democratic National Committee dressed in suits?

[Rufus laughing] This is not your usual burglar attire, so I thought it was a very unusual situation and we followed it in the months afterwards, particularly in articles written by Woodward and Bernstein in "The Washington Post".

- Absolutely.

- I think the first reaction is just why would anybody even attempt to break-in the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate and it, the article was very insignificant, as you mentioned at the time, and it really wasn't until it was discovered that there were checks from the Committee to re-elect the President that were deposited in the burglars bank account, that there began to be a linkage there and suspicions were raised.

- And so for you, Gene, when did you first hear it?

Same thing, I'm guessing, reading the regular news, not knowing it's a big deal, but just a curious, though, and suspicious.

- Yeah, well I was in Washington, the Congressman was a lawyer friend of mine and I was up there helping him get set up and part of what I was doing was attending functions at night.

[laughing] I never drank liquor but I never missed a party, [Melody laughing] and I ran into Rufus and he's told me what was going on and said, "Gene, you've done a lot of courtroom work, I need somebody who can ask questions 'cause we have a lot of inquires to go into", and so my experience of asking people questions is what got me into it and the interest was overwhelming.

- Well, see, I had just gotten my law degree, Lacy, Michael was working on his, and the, [throat clearing] in retrospect, I look back and I think, I've run 11 times statewide, I never had a thing in my office that was worth anything for anybody to break into and steal.

If you wanna find something about a campaign, go to the State Board of Elections, so that was another thing.

What in the world could these goofballs dressed in suits and ties walked out of breaking into the Democratic headquarters?

- [Gene] Mm-hm.

- Mm-hm.

- And, by the way, on Gene, he was very, as time went on and we were forming a committee, Gene was very reluctant to come on.

He said, "I don't like Washington DC, I love being back home in in Raleigh, I can't wait to get outta here", and I said, "Now look, we need you badly, you're seasoned, you're a lawyer."

Here I was at 30, 32 years old- - Mm-hm.

- Nobody should have a job like I had at that time, nobody at 32 years old being the Deputy Chief Counsel of a Senate committee that was going to be the focus of the nation, so we needed Gene, and thank goodness I had good persuasive powers.

[Gene chuckling] - So, Gene comes on board- - Yeah.

- And Gene, I mean, was it, you really didn't wanna do this thing?

- No, my first boss was Dr.

I. Beverly Lake and he always remembered, he said, "Gene, the happiest days I had was in my car in Washington, DC headed south", [laughing] that, I understood what he was talking about, but it was such a fascinating thing and I had done a lot of work in court asking questions, so I think that's what Rufus knew about that and he wanted somebody that knew how to ask questions and had some experience along that line.

- So, obviously there had to be a quick ramp-up to get things going, an investigation, the whole case, tell me about sort of this behind the scenes ramping up to get this going.

- Hmm.

- Well, the Committee, the Committee was formed in February of '73 by a unanimous vote of the US Senate and Senator Ervin was chosen by Majority Leader Mansfield as the chair because he was not a presidential candidate, because he had been a former justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, because he was so well respected on both sides of the aisle [committee members murmuring] and because he was a constitutional scholar, all of those things, and shortly thereafter he chose Rufus as the Deputy Chief Counsel and Sam Dash is the Majority Counsel and then the real, as you indicated, the work was necessary to create the committee itself and get ramped up and ready to go and let Rufus take it from there.

- Well, just getting a committee going on Capitol Hill, Melody, takes office space.

[committee members murmuring] You don't take away office space from any other senator, that's like trying to steal candy from a baby- - [Melody] Right.

- And we had the help of Senator B. Everett Jordan, with whom Michael had worked, as Chair of the Rules Committee, who made it easier for us, and we searched and searched and searched and nobody would give us the room to start in, So Senator Ervin and I were walking by the Senate Auditorium one day and I had a stupid notion, I said, "Well, Senator, why don't we take over that auditorium?"

and he didn't know anything about it and I called Bill Cochrane, an assistant Deputy Chief Counsel to Senator Everett Jordan, and he said, "You're crazy, you can't do that."

Well, we did, 'cause Senator Ervin talked to Senator Jordan and we did it, and getting the Committee together, like Lacy and Michael, we put together in a short order of time over a hundred people- - Mm.

- On a committee that was going to have worldwide consequences and in fact, these guys here, obviously, they were so eager that that's what made Watergate work, we had people eager to get the work done, and they can tell you about some of their exploits that they were just as important in Watergate as I was or Gene was, and we think we have some things that are sort of unique- - Mm-hm, mm-hm.

- But these two guys and the others that worked with me who are not with us tonight, were part of the linchpin of making this work because they worked so hard, and the one thing about the Nixon Administration, boy, they all put it on paper, didn't they?

- Every word of it, they did.

- Everything that they did, they put in paper, so there we were like vultures, we went to it.

[Gene chuckling] - Well, listen, they put it on paper, but we came to learn that they also had it on tapes, right?

- Mm-hm.

- [Rufus] [chuckling] Oh, yeah.

- So we wanna talk about these tapes, secret tapings in the White House, maybe some, as I understand, if my reading's correct, Camp David, perhaps, maybe?

- Mm-hm.

- Some of that, too, but really it's you, Gene, that you found those tapes and let me ask you what led to the discovery of those secret tapes?

- One of the witnesses I interviewed, I think it was Applebee, he said, "Gene", I asked him what was going on, he said, "I felt like I was being recorded", and that hint opened my mind to, well, was he being recorded?

He felt like it and I followed up on that and contacted some of the people involved and I have a vague recollection of the one that I called over, he said, "My lawyer said I had to tell the truth, so yes, we had a recording", and that opened the door for that.

- It may- - Gene's being a little bit too modest there.

He had studied the hearings well, and also John Dean, who was the star witness of Watergate, had said in his testimony, "I felt like I was also being taped" and Gene picked up on that, and Gene had a group of investigators in the office that day with this man named Alexander Butterfield that none of us, you introduced him to me, didn't you?

Or something like that, and but nobody thought he was gonna be much of a witness because they said, "Who's Alexander Butterfield?

He's a no, [Mike chuckling] he's a nothing at the White House."

- [Melody] Mm.

- He was there because he knew who sat where, he knew who did what and 'cause I remember asking Gene, I said, "Gene, why do you want him?"

and it turned out that that was the man that confessed to the taping system at the White House.

- So, let's say something about that, too, just about intuition and instinct for the person who's sitting there and thinking, "Wow, I feel like I'm being watched, I feel like I'm being taped", and that instinct, though, that he had and that he mentioned to you, and then your instinct to take it a little bit further, and now we've gotta figure out how do we get those tapes.

So how, Rufus, do you become the lucky person who gets to serve the subpoena and how does that come about, first, before the subpoena, there was this simple request for the tapes?

- Well, when the tapes were discovered, I remember Gene telling me, and I told Senator Ervin and his comments were, "Don't tell Lowell Weicker."

Lowell Weicker was a senator from Connecticut who leaked a lot and then the Committee met in Senator Ervin's office and said, "Well, we've got the tape revelation now, how do we get them?

", and I remember a man named Senator Herman Talmadge said something striking, he said, "Let's subpoena them", and Senator Ervin said, "Well, no, let's call President Nixon first."

Well, here I was sitting in the room with 'em, and Senator Ervin said to me, "Well, Rufus, [Gene laughing] go call President Nixon", sort of like, "Go get a loaf of bread", [all laughing] so I went in this little anteroom and I picked up the phone and I knew the number to the White House, Rose Mary Woods, I knew that number very well, and I rang it up and I said, "This is Rufus Edmisten, Deputy Chief Counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee, Senator Ervin would like to speak to President Nixon", and you gotta remember that all the time Nixon had been saying, "The Ervin Committee is out to get me, out to get me."

Well, when this voice came on, it wasn't Rose Mary Woods, it was, "Hello Senator, this is Richard Nixon."

I was so flabbergasted I said, "Mr. President, Senator Ervin wants to get you!"

[all laughing] Oh, I couldn't have said anything any worse in my life and after I collected myself, I went back in and Senator Ervin got on the phone with President Nixon, and you could tell that the conversation was not going well because Ervin's eyebrows were flashing up and down like windshield wipers and he was agitated.

We could only hear Senator Ervin's side of it- - Mm.

- And he was getting nowhere and then what happened when Nixon said, "No, you can't have it, executive privilege", the Committee voted that day unanimously for the first time in history to subpoena a president and you ask me, Melody, "How did I get to do it?

", well, I chose myself to do it.

[all laughing] I thought, "Well, look, I've been helping run this Committee, putting it together, and I'm gonna do that."

So, there you go.

- And you guys are part of that Committee that was put together, so let let me ask you most memorable moments and characters, if you would, like, you know, Lacy and Mike- - How- - From your investigation, in that case?

- There were lots of memorable characters, but you can't go beyond Senator Ervin.

His demeanor, his open-mindedness, his just expertise in the Constitution and Constitutional history and his humor as a country lawyer from Morganton, North Carolina, just made him the perfect person both to conduct the investigation and to help lead the public [Committee members murmuring] along in a search for the truth, so I think it had to start with him.

- I couldn't start, I agree with Lacy 100%.

Senator Ervin was the driving force and was the, became known as Uncle Sam to the American public and he became that icon because of his credibility and his desire to conduct a fair investigation- - [Melody] Mm-hm.

- And he did, but there were a lot of memorable characters in the, among the defendants.

Rufus did, and as a result of our relationship, working closely together, had the opportunity to do Maurice Stans who was the Secretary of Commerce in the Nixon Administration, who was the head of the Finance Committee to re-elect the President and Rufus, that was one of Rufus' witnesses and we spent a lot of time getting ready to have him testify.

Rufus did L. Patrick Gray, who was the Director of the FBI, who had destroyed documents at the request of the White House, and, but the most famous character of all probably is G. Gordon Liddy, who was unique, I guess is a good way to put it, such that he was so unique that the decision of the Committee, and Rufus may want to talk about this, well the decision was not to put him on the stand as a witness because of his claim that he was gonna take the Fifth Amendment and some of the other crazy stories that were associated with him, but Rufus, you may want to talk about Liddy.

- Yeah, he, well, we began to interview him over in the little White House, and that's what I call the place that I had in my office, and this man was a nut, [Mike chuckling] jumping up and down, doing this and that, and I thought, "Well, this is", I asked Senator Ervin about it, he said, "Well, first of all, he'll make a mockery of the hearing, and secondly, he doesn't have that much to say", and so we decided not to call him and then my most memorable character, though, was the most boring one of the whole thing, John Dean- - Mm-hm.

- Because of his brilliant mind.

He went for almost two and a half days with the most boring testimony you've ever heard, but it was on point and the White House tried to cross him up, tried to say he was a big liar.

He made one little mistake, he got a coffee shop messed up, he said it was in some place it wasn't, which was irrelevant, but this man had a absolute phenomenal memory and so I would have to say that to have been as boring as he was, and as a good friend as he is today, excuse me, John- - Mm.

- He was the most memorable character of that era.

- And Gene, I wanna know from you, most memorable character from that whole thing?

I mean, you've listened to these tapes, you've collected a lot of data, I wanna talk about that, too, because computers are out now changing technology and that's really helping to create a database and that is- - Mm-hm.

- Because of something you discovered, but for you, the person who stands out most?

- Hmm, there were quite a few that stood out most, but to me, the one that stood out most was this guy right here.

- Oh, my God.

[chuckling] - He was in charge and he, I think we met at a cocktail party, I don't drink but I never missed a party, and Rufus said, "I've got a couple of other council team, but I need somebody who knows how to ask questions", and he said, "Won't you come over and help us?"

and at that time I drove to Washington every Monday morning and drove back home on Friday and worked my law office over the weekend and then went back to Washington the next Monday, but it was quite an experience, but it was because Rufus said the other two counsel he had, had not done a whole lot of questioning of witnesses in the courthouse and he wanted me to give that a try, so I gave in.

- 'Cause he was essential.

Gene also was the first person in the history of the US Congress to embark on a program of computerization of testimony of computer!

- Yeah.

- And I remember when I was in the Senate with Ervin, we had a computer that was as big this room here- - Right.

- And Gene can tell you about, he went to the Library of Congress one time- - Yeah.

- And said, "What is that thing you got over there?

", and he computerized for the Watergate Committee, for the first time in history, the testimony so that we could refer back to what somebody had said before, so he's got two firsts- - Yeah.

- In his base, he initiated the hearings that discovered the tapes, and he imposed or improvised a computer system, as archaic as it was- - Yeah.

- At that time for the Watergate Committee.

- [Gene] Yeah.

- We do have to remember this isn't a time, and it's hard for people to think of that today, a time when we didn't have like a computer, basically, in the size of a cell phone- - Yeah.

- But really that did revolutionize things using the computer technology in that way, and I wanna talk about, because you're having to create a database of people you're going to interview, different evidence that's coming up, when we talk about the investigation and the interviews, also wanna talk about journalists who were doing interviews, too.

So we have, and this is why it's such a part of popular culture, also, you've got Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein with "The Washington Post", they win a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting and then they also write a book, "All The President's Men", then there's a movie, everybody's seen all of this stuff, how was your working relationship with reporters, because certainly we know for the record they weren't revealing their sources, but it seems like that maybe there was some sort of at least cooperative relationship, or how would you characterize the relationship?

- Well, Lacy can tell you that anybody that moved or breathed in Watergate was asked by reporters something.

Now these guys, I don't know, I don't think they ever leaked anything, uh- - Absolutely not.

[all laughing] - Under no circumstances, even to Connie Chung.

[Rufus laughing] - And she was my favorite, by the way.

[Mike laughing] - To tell you the extent to which we protected things, I rode from DC to Raleigh with Gene Boyce the day that he discovered the taping system in the White House and rode back with him on Sunday and he never mentioned to me anything about the taping system, I learned about it at 11:00 Monday morning.

- Yeah, that's the most phenomenal thing.

- I hated it, I hated not to be able to [laughing] to tell.

- No, the fact- - I don't know how you kept it secret.

- [Lacy] It was important- - That's it, mm-hm.

- But I do think it was a healthy relationship, but I, the journalists from "The Washington Post" are, should receive credit for creating an awareness.

I don't know that the Senate would've ever voted unanimously to create this investigative committee if it hadn't been for the stories run from "The Washington Post".

- And there was a fair number of, we had a lot of coordinate, oh, not coordination, I think probably is not the correct word, we had a lot of contact from the media.

When they would pick up on allegations, they would often report them to us and we pursued a number of allegations that they brought to our attention, so it was a cooperative relationship and one that produced- - Yeah.

- Significant results.

- Well, it was a two way street, as Mike said, there were times when they knew something that helped us and there were times, though, when we helped them and all over the country, not only Woodward and Bernstein, I remember Clark Mollenhoff, I remember the lady that later married the publisher of "The Washington Post", Sally Quinn- - Mm-hm.

- Everybody was trying to get a story.

Now, my favorite reporter of all was in the TV, was Connie Chung.

So every time I saw Connie, she was running after somebody, and Lesley Stahl was another one.

We had a recent 50th anniversary of the Watergate Committee in Washington, DC- - Mm-hm.

- Which all these folks attended, and we had folks there- - Mm.

- And it was a marvelous, marvelous gathering and there are not many of us left, to tell you the truth.

I, Gene is probably the oldest Watergater around, I'm probably the next, and these guys are getting on up, on up there.

[laughing] [Mike chuckling] - Well, lemme tell, we only have, literally, 45 seconds to wrap up, I want to ask an important question about, I know, it's gone by fast, but when we think about democracy, separation of powers, journalism being an important pillar of that democracy, where do we feel like, in 30 seconds, actually, that we have left, did we thought that was an answer?

We had Watergate, we had sort of a resolution, but, and we're thinking, "We're okay, this won't happen again"- - I'll answer that- - Is that where we are?

- We're back at Watergate again already with all this flushing of money and I'm worried about democracy.

- 10 seconds?

- I think we, it's Watergate and it's investigation prove that facts and the truth matter, and it's really important for people today to remember that the truth and the facts matter.

- All right, Watergate still matters to our history.

We wanna thank our panelists for joining us with this special episode of "State Lines".

I'm Melody Hunter-Pillion, thank you for watching, [intense upbeat music] we'll see you next time.

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